On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 10:00 PM, Bart Smaalders<[email protected]> wrote: > [email protected] wrote: > >> We're not preventing you from doing your job, we're trying to prevent >> you from building a broken default configuration. >> > > Pkg A contains a hardlink to a file in pkg B, and has a > require dependency on pkg B as a result. If pkg A is installed > with --nodeps, and package B is not installed, what should happen?
The system should warn the user that a dependency is missing, and *leave it to the user* to accept the consequences. > This packaging system is designed to support the installation of > software according to the parameters laid down by the publisher. > The design of variants and facets, for example, is driven by > the need of the publisher to specify the supportable alternative > configurations of his/her product; the removal of arbitrary portions > of a package (including dependencies) at the whim of the administrator > can and _will_ produce arbitrarily broken results. Define broken. The package dependencies only reflect a single meaning of "working" within a single context; for other meanings and in other contexts the dependency information is less meaningful. Assigning magical and mystical powers to dependencies elevates them to an importance far beyond reality. Dependencies are metadata that should be used as input to a policy. That the default policy is "track and install dependencies" is entirely reasonable; in fact I would be astonished for anyone to think that's not a reasonable default. In other circumstances, different policies may be more suitable. > Administrators seeking to redesign packages to better match their > notion of an ideal distribution should republish the packages > to match their requirements; of course, the results will not likely > be supported by the originators of those packages. Is this always going to be the answer - to tell us not to use what's been provided because it's unsuitable and tell us to roll our own? -- -Peter Tribble http://www.petertribble.co.uk/ - http://ptribble.blogspot.com/ _______________________________________________ pkg-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/pkg-discuss
